Thank you so much for all the love & support throughout the last year. I just wanted to make a quick note (that will appear on all WIP updates, so everyone has the chance to read it) about how I've organized the updates. Aside from Love Like Blood (which I'd finished & completed posting before moving onto the other updates so the story is complete & out of the way), the updates will be posted in the order of furthest back date of 'last update' to most recent.
I know some of you are really anxious for updates on specific fics & would like to ask for your continued patience as I move through this process. Literally every open fic in my story list has an update ready to go, so whatever story you've been waiting for will have a new chapter in the coming days/weeks.
Chapter Ten
The Formality
When Hermione and Draco entered the ballroom of Dagworth Estate, they appeared every inch the picture of a perfect match. Him dashing, his lean figure cut tall and sleek in his fine dark dress robes, her elegant and graceful—in a way she'd never before been credited when moving about—in her blue and silver almost-Muggle-gown robes.
Her hand tucked through the crook of his bent arm, he rested the fingers of his free hand over hers. Her face titled upward and his down, their gazes rarely flickered from one another's eyes as they engaged in some whispered conversation for their ears alone.
Contrary to their unruffled and flawless appearance, however, the pair was carrying on what was possibly the most heated and strained argument they'd had since no longer being on opposite sides of a literal war.
"No," he said in a hissing whisper, shaking his head at her even as his pure-blood upbringing saw to him instinctively slapping a smile on his face the moment they were in front of all those inquisitive stares of all those inquisitive guests. "I'm not going to just play along like a good little boy, Granger. Not unless you tell me why we should be doing this."
Hermione, much to her own surprise, was perhaps becoming more accustomed to all this pure-blood nonsense than she'd like to admit, as she took a cue from him, mirroring his smile in spite of herself. "The words 'like a good little boy' never fell from my lips, Draco Malfoy," she pointed out, her chestnut eyes rather expressive with regard to what she thought of that sort of admonishment.
He paused for a heartbeat, shaking his head. Too many times of hearing that chastising term in his life had him inferring an insult where there wasn't one. "You're right, sorry. But you still have yet to tell me why, I mean, aside from saving you from the spectacle of having a string of young wizards throw themselves at you."
There needed to be more? She hadn't even glanced around at the guests nor the décor since they'd entered, her attention fixed on the young wizard at her side all the while as they walked toward the grand staircase—not unlike a scene from a fairytale, of the mysterious figure being announced and sweeping down the steps as everyone tittered about how beautiful or handsome they were.
"I thought we were trying to be friends," she said, aware her voice had slipped out wounded.
Forgetting himself, Draco's smile slipped and he rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. "Granger, don't …. I can't argue with you when you use that tone."
She willfully ignored the feeling of her stomach flopping a little at his words. So … so he couldn't take her sounding hurt, that was probably just because she sounded whiny and—and only one of them could be whiny! Yes, that was it. There was no other meaning at all to him crumbling at the tone of her voice.
The witch pulled her escort to a halt, using her hand on his arm to turn him to face her. "Then don't." She forced a laugh and shrugged. "I only meant isn't being a friend enough to think I should be permitted to ask your help with at least some expectation of receiving it? Friends help each other, Malfoy."
"Believe it or not, I do understand the concept, Granger." When she—perhaps predictably—granted him an incredulous look, he uttered a scoffing sound in the back of his throat. "Oh, shut up. No, what I mean is, yes, I'm willing to help you—as your friend—but—as my friend—aren't you the least bit concerned with the position this will put me in? Publicly, I mean. You get out from under the weight of all those suitors, what do I get?"
With an awkward giggle as she grasped what he was getting at, a sheepish grin curved her lips. "Temporarily taken off the market, I suppose?"
"Exactly." Of course in the short amount of time between Hermione dropping this mad notion on him and now he hadn't fully articulated the thought as to why this whole thing bothered him, yet the concise explanation she'd just offered seemed to have done the job for him. "Did you even think to ask me if there was someone whose interest might no longer be an option thanks to your little charade?"
Just as with the almost-flopping of her stomach a few moments earlier, Hermione ignored an uncomfortable jolt that flickered through her at his words. She was merely put off that he was rejecting her idea … and upset with herself for being so thoughtless about his feelings on the matter, yes, that was all she felt.
"Hermione, darling!" Dahlia's voice preempted whatever Hermione's response might have been.
Offering Draco an apologetic look, she once more plastered on a smile—as did he—and turned with something of a flourish to face her mother. And thought … as he stepped up to stand a bit more closely at her shoulder, that she should stop being stupid.
These emotions, flickering, fleeting, however she wanted to play them down or explain them away, they clearly all indicated one, possibly quite troubling fact. She liked Draco Malfoy.
She fought not to let her smile slip as Mother and Narcissa—both absolute models of pure-blood sophistication this evening—approached them.
She liked Draco Malfoy … or she was going mad. Huh.
Maybe she'd go for the second option. Madness felt safer, somehow.
Narcissa was saying something in Dahlia's ear and Hermione would definitely pretend her mother wasn't giggling like a school girl who'd just heard a naughty rumor. And the way the pair of elder witches let their gazes leap from one of their children to the other and back, well … she couldn't say she didn't know the topic of discussion.
"You're right. I should've brought up the idea and asked rather than simply dropping it on you and running out here," she said to Draco in a whisper over her shoulder. "I'm sorry."
"I suppose I accept," he responded, complete with a melodramatic sigh, as though he was being so accommodating.
She folded her lips inward a moment, just barely holding in a laugh.
"Well," Dahlia began when she and Narcissa at last reached them through the crowded ballroom, "you two make quite the lovely picture."
"That's what I was just telling her," Draco jumped in, his tone saccharine.
Hermione would wonder later how she kept her face from falling as she turned her head to look up at Draco.
"Everyone has arrived by now, it seems." Narcissa gestured with a delicate hand to indicate the entirety of the room. "You missed the formal introductions. Dare we ask what kept you two?"
Though the younger Dagworth witch was internally screaming as she cobbled together a quick, safe response in her head, Draco had looked about the ballroom. Spying familiar faces—one of which he very much wanted to avoid—he slipped a hand around Hermione's arm, giving a gentle squeeze.
That touch caught her just before she opened her mouth to offer a reply, to offer something that might let Draco off the hook no matter what position that would leave her in. Glancing up at him from the corner of her eye, he winked—Draco Malfoy winked—and she was perfectly aware their mothers had seen it, too.
"I've got this, all right?"
Hermione turned her full attention on him. Uncertain what to make of his serene expression—and of that wink—she found herself too startled by the sheer oddity of the moment to speak. She opted for simply nodding in response.
With a bright, beaming grin, he nodded back before redirecting his attention to Dahlia and Narcissa. "I've a feeling this won't come as a shock to either of you—you probably suspect what I'm about to say. Hermione and I have decided we would like to enter a formal courtship."
Swallowing hard, Hermione met and held Narcissa Malfoy's gaze for a few heartbeats. She knew Narcissa Malfoy wasn't what she'd feared the woman would be for so long, knew that she and Draco had both acknowledged that their mothers had been trying to subtly push them together this entire time …. But still there was something in her that screamed and panicked, certain Draco's mother was about to start a fuss of epic proportions. Either because Hermione—raised as a Muggle—wasn't good enough for her son, or because they'd made this decision all on their own, without consulting the wisdom of their parents.
But Narcissa instead stepped closer and clamped her hands delicately around Hermione's shoulders. Leaning close, she tapped a light, feathery kiss to each of the younger witch's cheeks.
Repeating the gesture with her son, she stepped back. "May this decision bode well for you both."
Hermione glanced at Dahlia, who met her daughter's gaze and nodded. All right, Hermione thought, that must be the equivalent of being given her blessing. An impression that was both clarified and reinforced when Narcissa stepped back only for Dahlia to drift forward and duplicate the process.
Hermione found herself in a bit of a daze after that, drifting through moments here and there on Draco's arm, aware time was passing and things were happening, but unable to really make sense of any of it. Their friends—well, her friends who were learning more and more to tolerate him—had made their way over at some point. She recalled laughing and talking with them as though nothing was the matter, yet she could not recall even a few minutes later what they'd discussed.
They ate some of the delicious food set out, yet she couldn't remember what the dishes actually tasted like.
At some point, Kingsley called for the assembled pure-bloods attention. He called over the Dagworth family—Draco had accompanied her to the edge of the crowd and then nudged her toward her parents.
There was some brief ceremony, a fancy quill, spelled ink, an enormous, leather-bound tome ….
She signed her birth name and then that was that, apparently.
It seemed about this time that Draco realized she was out of sorts. She wasn't certain if that was because he was, too, being caught up in his own version of internal 'oh, Lord, what have we done?', or because she'd put on such a good show of not being out of sorts until that moment.
Taking her arm, he guided her to a quiet corner. "You all right?"
"Hmm?" Blinking a few times, she met his gaze as she shook her head. "Yes … actually no, sorry. I'm just—"
"It's all a bit much, huh?" he asked, frowning.
Hermione thought on that. Finally, for the first time since he'd pulled that one-eighty about pretending a courtship, her mind seemed to clear.
"I think I was experiencing a sort of mental defense mechanism."
Draco's brows rose.
Her eyes narrowed. "I was so angry that you got upset with me for my suggestion only to jump right on board in front of our mothers, I was genuinely concerned I might murder you in front of everyone!" She squared her shoulders and exhaled loudly. "And so, my mind went fuzzy, forcing me to focus on simply trying to make sense of my surroundings, while I tried to sort how I felt when it came to your about-face in the back of my head."
His features pinched in a pained wince. "And did you?"
"Did I … ?"
"Sort how you felt?"
With a pout, the witch shook her head. "Not really. I'm just confused by it, I suppose. Why did you do that?"
"Well …." He glanced about the room, his gaze landing on something in the distance before he winced again and returned his attention to her. "Promise you won't be cross?"
"Absolutely not."
At the seriousness of her expression, Draco groaned. "Fine, I'll tell you anyway. I'm … trying to keep Pansy at bay."
Chestnut eyes widened. "Oh. That's right, she's here tonight." She made a thoughtful sound in the back of her throat. "I completely forgot I insisted my mother not forget to invite the Parkinsons."
His eyebrows shooting up, he managed in a vehement hiss of syllables, "You insisted on it? Why?"
"Um." Hermione pretended to need a moment to think before going on. "Perhaps because she's a petty, vindictive, spiteful creature who spent six years of my life treating me like the scum of the earth because my parents were Muggles? I want to make it clear to her that there will be no sucking up that will make me ignore the past. There will be no playing nice so she can save face now for how she treated me then."
"So you're throwing your new status in her face, is what you're saying?"
"That's exactly what I'm saying." Her gaze roved the ceiling and then returned to his. "So what's us courting have to do with her?"
"Well, she sort of … she fancies herself in love with me and because I haven't dated anyone else since we broke up, she believes there's a future there."
Nodding, Hermione sighed. "So, you were angry with me for taking you off the market without your permission, only to turn around and use me as a Pansy-repellent without my permission?"
A pensive expression flitted across his face. "When you put it like that … we've both been sort of terrible to each other about this." His shoulders slumped. "I'm sorry. You were right, too," he said, referring to her earlier apology—and her earlier point. "We are trying to be friends and I should've … said something, found some way to mention it to you before I said it to our mothers. But when I saw her there and she … she looked over and saw me, I sort of panicked, I guess."
Well, yes, she could understand the sight of Pansy causing one to panic.
With another nod, she offered, "All right. So, let's have it like this, then: we just be honest with each other in this whole mess. Moving forward, if we want to, say … rub someone's face in what they can't have, or … keep a gaggle of eager wizards at bay, we simply explain that before going off and saying or doing anything publicly."
Snickering at how obvious and stupid the solution sounded—because it was obvious and they were being stupid—he smiled. "Sounds good."
"All right, well ..." Slipping her hand into his, she said, "What say we go rub Pansy's nose in you and I making a spectacle of ourselves on the dance floor?"
"Hmm, might keep some eager wizard's at bay while we're at it." Draco's smile widened, now it was his turn to nod. "Shall we, then?"
